Residents in regional north-east Victoria have taken their needs into their own hands, pooling together millions of dollars to fund community projects and initiatives.
Sylvie Huigen is a recent local, having packed up her life in Melbourne and moving than 200km to the area.
“We were coming here on the weekends all the time, and spending all our money on weekends away to the area, so we started applying for jobs,” Huigen said.
The region — which includes Mansfield, Wangaratta and the Alpine and Indigo shires — is susceptible to natural disasters and has lost lives, property and the environment to fires, floods and storms over the years.
Huigen is leading the Into Our Hands Community Foundation, which was established by a small group of locals in 2012 when they noticed the federal and state recovery funding in response to the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires was drying up.
The group knew there was still work to be done and wanted to be self-reliant and fund their own needs.
The foundation began collecting donations from locals, which were put into community initiatives through grants.
A portion of the donations was invested into a future fund to keep growing a pool of money that the region can fall back on in times of crisis.
“There’s not like one major town in the north-east where everyone congregates. It’s all quite separate little communities with their own identities and personalities and needs,” Huigen said.
Since its inception, the foundation has raised more than $1.6 million, supporting 267 projects and organisations in various ways.
In Myrtleford, the foundation provided advice to help locals raise more than $20,000 through a phone-a-thon.
“That will all go back into things like supporting the State Emergency Services in Myrtleford, the community garden, the toy library, and then their investment fund,” Huigen said.
“They’ll be able to use that if or when there’s another fire or another flood, there’s money there just slowly working away in the background that they can call upon for community need when that disaster happens.
“I think the town is really, really proud of themselves.”
Huigen said the region is sometimes overlooked, but the local residents, councils and businesses have all thrown their support behind the organisation.
Her next step is to review the long-term needs of the region.
“Community foundations generally work best when the need comes from the community,” she said.
